Utility stocks — the traditionally boring and staid sector got a rude awaking this past year in the form of the Federal Reserve. Investors both large and small began fleeing the sector in fear of rising interest rates. Conventional wisdom is that utility stocks are D.O.A as the Fed begins ratcheting up interest rates. For starters, their own borrowing costs will go up. After all, it takes a lot of debt to build-out a new natural gas plant or water line.
You may want to go against conventional wisdom and consider utility stocks for your portfolio while the sector is dirt cheap — the XLU can be had for price-earnings of only 13. With that in mind, here are three utility stocks to buy today: ITC Holdings (ITC) Dividend Yield: 1.9%, NextEra Energy (NEE) Dividend Yield: 2.96% and Consolidated Edison (ED) Dividend Yield: 4.04%.